The Brummie Con

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  Christina’s squeegee no doubt. But I keep the thought unspoken, even with the top-forty pop music turned up and the cabbie ignoring us and occasionally jabbering into his dispatch radio.

  “Where to?” I ask Puo.

  There’s a pause followed by Puo grumping, “No applause? No, gee whiz, Chameleon, that was wicked fast. You’re amazing. Good job.”

  “Remind me to pat the device we picked up in Seattle on the head when I see it next,” I say while still trying not to take deep breaths. I think the shallow breathing is making me light-headed and the stench is making me nauseated.

  “Ya’ know,” Puo says, “there’s just no romance left with you. No mystery. If familiarity breeds contempt, we’re as about as familiar as you can get.”

  “Chameleon,” I start to admonish, keeping my voice low.

  “Look,” Puo says, “all I’m saying is relationships take work. But I think we’re worth it. I’m willing to fight for us. Are you? Are you willing to fight for us?”

  Winn breaks in with a big ol’ smirk. “I’m willing to fight for the both of you! I believe in you two!” He’s sitting next to me in the back of the hovercar on the well-worn and cracked leather seat. His bright blue eyes are alight with mischief.

  “I believe in us too!” Puo shouts right back.

  What is happening? “Chameleon—!”

  Winn taps me with his foot, and gives me a look to play along. Winn says, “Now, you both got a good thing going—”

  “I think so,” Puo bleats out.

  “But,” Winn continues, “there have been some problems.”

  “Well, they’re her fault,” Puo says, sounding like he’s twelve again. “She doesn’t appreciate me! Or say thank you! And we never get to do what I want to do in the bedroom.”

  The drone alarm is nothing compared to what’s coming for Puo now.

  “There’s blame on both sides,” Winn says.

  I give Winn an outraged look.

  The cabbie up front shifts his head in an obvious I’m-trying-to-listen-without-looking-like-I’m-listening move.

  I say loud enough for the suddenly curious cabbie, “Well, I am sorry about the bedroom. I am sorry that I am not comfortable with dressing up as a ‘fluffy’ Spanish bull wearing pink heels while eating a kumquat ‘suggestively.’ And why do they have to be pink? I had green ones.”

  “Well, excuse me,” Puo says, “for assuming we were in a safe place after pretending to be a milking cow and a young inexperienced farmhand.”

  I just shake my head and rub my forehead.

  Winn can’t keep the grin off his face. “This isn’t constructive right now—”

  Ya’ think?

  “—What’s important right now is that both of you are willing to talk this through. Are you?”

  “Mooo!” Puo shouts with glee, well aware no one else can hear him.

  Gaaa!

  I manage to bite off a “Yes.”

  “Great,” Winn says, “Where should we meet you?”

  Finally. Why couldn’t we have just started here?

  ***

  The rest of the cab ride is at least blessedly silent, if not blessedly devoid of air freshener and stubborn cigarette smoke. I’ve moved to resting my sleeve-covered hand under my nose as I look out at the city below us.

  Ham has done very well for himself, landing a coveted terraced home in the Doyle Flat section just north of the inner city. Who knew being an assistant lecturer (the lowest of the low) paid so well?

  We dip down into the nicely laid-out streets, wider than they were in the original city to accommodate the landing of hovercars.

  It’s quiet in this part of the city. The streets are cleaner; the cars are parked straighter. The drizzle falls softer here. Evergreen plants are regularly stationed down the streets, color guards against the dreary winter. People are dressed smartly. Even the residents out walking their dogs are dressed up in slacks and expensive winter coats.

  How does Ham even fit into a place like this?

  I spot the forest-green awning of the coffee shop the cabbie is dropping us off at rising up to meet us. I can already taste a hot latte, feel its warm paper cup in my hands as Winn and I stroll down Ham’s street arm-in-arm.

  Amid the well-dressed clients of the coffee shop coming into sharper focus, a pear-shaped woman with bright pink hair pops out like a piece of bubble gum smeared across a white dining tablecloth.

  Shit.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I say suddenly. To the cabbie I order him back to a part of the city near our flat.

  “What—?” both Winn and Puo say.

  The cabbie looks back questioningly.

  “Now!” I order.

  Winn bobs his head. “Do as she says.”

  The cabbie reverses course.

  That double-crossing mouth-shitter sent Arleen.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “WE HAVE TO make the grab tonight,” I say as soon as Winn and I walk back into the flat.

  Puo is waiting for us with his arms crossed in the living room, standing behind the cream-colored upholstered couch. “What happened?”

  “Arleen,” I explain. “We scared Ty into staying in place, so he sent Arleen. Who is, no doubt, reporting back.”

  “Did she see you?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Does she know about Ham?”

  “Yes,” I say. “What are the odds she would be in that part of New Dublin, in the very same place we were about to launch a reconnaissance trip?”

  Puo nods at this. “So you want to pull a grab, of a paranoid Cleaner—”

  “They’re all paranoid,” I cut in.

  “—with a Cleaner on the run from other Cleaners,” Puo clarifies. “With no recon and little to no prep time.”

  “How much time Puo?” I ask. “How much time do we have? What’s the ticker at now?”

  Puo doesn’t even need to look. Thirty-nine hours.

  Winn breaks in with, “We also don’t know when Arleen will make contact, alerting Ham that something’s up.”

  I point at Winn and stare at Puo like he should’ve thought of that. “We need to get to work. Why are you fighting me?”

  Puo holds his hands up. “I’m not saying no. I’m just laying out the facts that we have to work with. Ham’s no buttercup. If it has to be tonight—?”

  “It has to be tonight,” I confirm.

  “Then what’s the plan?” He looks at me expectedly.

  I ... I— I haven’t thought that far ahead. “Pull everything up you can on Ham’s home and the others surrounding it.”

  “Done,” Puo says, not moving.

  “Pull the authorities’ patrols tonight.”

  “Done.”

  “Get the drone ready to fly.”

  “Charged and ready to go.”

  “Well?” I prompt him.

  “Well what?” he asks confused.

  “Anything we can use? Any ideas?”

  Puo shrugs.

  “What are you shrugging at me for?”

  “I just can’t believe we’re going to do this on tonight of all nights.”

  “What about tonight?” I ask.

  Puo says, “Ho-ho-ho.”

  Son of a— That’s it. That’s it!

  “There it is,” Puo says, his shoulders relaxing and his furrowed brow easing into his dark Samoan skin. “That’s the face I’ve been waiting for.”

  ***

  We had to go with plan B. Do you have any idea how hard it is to legitimately locate a Santa and elf costume on Christmas Eve? Impossible. Stores are closed and delivery services have run out. The only option left was an old-fashioned mugging of a Santa walking down the street, which we ruled out. Not that we’re above it in an emergency, but there’s just too much random chance riding on something like that.

  Winn and I are right back out again in the drizzling cold almost an hour later, dressed snugly like two matching lovesick yuppies in Christmas sweaters. The drizzle lands light
ly on my face, settles onto my black winter hat and hair like drops of morning dew. I mentally rehearse the lyrics to “O Holy Night.”

  I never have understood the concept of Christmas caroling other than as a form of distraction. People show up at your door singing, and what are you supposed to do? Stand there and try not to look annoyed? Give them donations? A drink? If you did, would they leave earlier or be encouraged and sing another song? Ah, well. Fortunately, it’s not something I’ve ever had to deal with.

  There’s still a healthy bustle in the city on Christmas Eve at seven in the evening, but it’s starting to thin with everyone headed home to nest with their families.

  Winn and I turn down the street with the green-awning coffee shop on the corner of Ham’s street. I adjust my winter hat to pull it down lower over my ears as we pass the coffee shop. A woman sitting inside at the bar facing the street with her head down staring at her tablet unconsciously raises her hand to touch her left ear.

  Damn it.

  I look over at Winn and smile. “So what’d you get me for Christmas?” I scan the road ahead looking for sentries, possible lookout vehicles. The street is full of cars parked for the evening, their interiors dark and impenetrable, the streetlights shining off of them like two-way mirrors.

  “Ah-uh-uh,” Winn teases. “We’re so close, would you really like me to tell you now?”

  We’re past the coffee shop with no one immediately near us. “No, I suppose not,” I say, keeping my voice light. I start laying on the double talk for Puo on the comm-link. “Is it a trip to the Canaries? I would love to be on the beach right now. The blue water, the warm sun on our bodies. Imagine that compared to this dreary sty.” I gesture around us. “I’d get a new bikini. String.”

  “I read you loud and clear,” Puo breaks in over our comm-links. “Falcon, in case you missed it with all your blood rushing south, Isa thinks—”

  “Mmm ...” Winn cuts Puo off. “That is a nice visual. Not sure I want all that attention on you though. Perhaps we should step off the street after we pass this guy with a dog for a little preview?”

  Yeah, Winn gets it. I had marked the dog walker as a possible cop as well.

  Puo breaks in, “Falcon, she thinks—”

  “You read my mind,” I say to Winn, so Puo will catch a clue and stop jabbering at us. “But alas, the preview will have to wait.” We’re nearing the dog walker bundled up for the cold. It appears the dog is walking him. “Your hat is crooked,” I say to Winn.

  Winn obliges, touching his ear to straighten his hat, and the dog walker’s free hand twitches but he stops himself—all while pretending not to notice us.

  Double damn.

  We pass by with a cheerful, “Merry Christmas,” which the man returns while the dog is vigorously trying to sniff us.

  “Think Santa’s up there?” I ask. “Looking down on us?”

  “Of course,” Winn says. “But he’s too busy to be a peeping Tom tonight. I, on the other hand, can’t shake this preview image out of my mind.”

  Puo says, “Drone is airborne. I’ll have it sniff around the area.”

  “How much longer to the flat?” Winn asks. He’s asking if we’re going home.

  “Not far,” I say. “I want to make one stop first.”

  ***

  Thirty minutes later and several neighborhoods away, Winn and I huddle in an alley occasionally peeking around the corner at a lone beat cop sitting in the dark in her patrol car. The street is quieter here, little movement, only the streetlights and lighted signs from the closed businesses lining the street stand against the drizzle.

  “C’mon, where is she?” I ask impatiently, looking down the street from around the corner for Colleen, a homeless woman we bribed to lure the cop away from her patrol car.

  The cops definitely have Ham’s street under surveillance. But surveillance for who? Ham, or us? Both? Did that pile-of-dick-snot Ty tip the cops off? Or was Ham already under surveillance and that’s how the Cleaners narrowed it down so fast—having an insider with the cops? Too many questions, not enough time. Thirty-seven and half hours.

  I squash the jackknives that start to rumble at the thought.

  Puo needs an entry point to burrow deeper into the authorities’ system—they keep their operational traffic behind an encryption wall that can only be accessed by certain hardware: like the radios in patrol cars.

  “Here she comes,” Winn says, ducking back around the alley corner.

  I resist the urge to peek, and instead listen for the sound of the car door slamming. We have to be quick.

  Knuckles on glass. Colleen jabbering—we’re too far away to make out distinct words.

  Colleen’s young, not much older than me. People always think homeless people are old and weathered. Having been homeless, I can assure you, poverty hits indiscriminately—the greatest equal opportunity employer of them all.

  More jabbering—frantic now. The car door opens.

  I grab and hold Winn, who was starting to move, in place.

  The car door slams shut.

  “Peek,” I whisper to Winn.

  Winn ducks his head around the corner. “Let’s go.”

  We both run to the patrol car, trying to keep our steps soft against the wet pavement.

  Winn flops down on his back when we get there and slides under the driver-side door to temporarily short-circuit the alarm—Puo left us the equipment we needed in a hastily arranged drop. “Ready,” Winn says.

  I stand over him and slip the electronic tumbler into the car door lock. The cop’s car doesn’t need a fingerprint to open, oddly enough, but it does require an electronic pairing to the right key.

  Three seconds later I say to Puo on the comm-link, “I’m in.” I flip off the recording equipment in the car and plop down into the driver’s seat and close the door behind me—Winn stays where he is on the pavement.

  “The serial number should be on the bottom edge,” Puo says.

  I pop the embedded tablet in the center console off and dig around to find the up-link modem amidst all the wires and chips. It’s a black rectangle hanging loose, about the size of my palm.

  “Found it,” I say and rattle the number off.

  “Received,” Puo says, then goes quiet.

  I sit there waiting, heart pounding in my chest. The police car smells like cold coffee and vacuumed upholstery. There’s a shotgun strapped to the ceiling and paperwork lying across the passenger seat. Her radio is missing. It’s a different feeling being in the front of one of these than in the back. I remember all too well the way my nine-year-old frame felt like a stick figure being tossed around when the car turned, unable to catch myself with my hands behind my back. The cop had let me go in the end—my father, I learned much later.

  “Chameleon—” I whisper.

  “Okay, okay,” Puo rushes, “I got it.”

  Puo walks me through installing the hardware backdoor, which gives him the entry point he needs, which is as simple as unplugging the network cord from the up-link modem and inserting the hardware backdoor between that and the modem.

  I pop the tablet back into the center console. “I’m done.” I open the door, stepping over Winn and run back to the alley.

  Winn catches up less than a minute later.

  “Well?” I whisper to Puo.

  “I’m in.”

  ***

  Puo hits us with it as soon as we walk in the door.

  “Joint surveillance operation. MI5 and local cops.”

  It’s like Puo flipped the off-switch on my batteries, leaving me bereft of energy. I rub at my temples, pull at my face. All I can think is, thirty-seven hours. It has to be a bluff.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” I say. Puo’s about to object when I add, “Only complicates things.”

  Puo nods once to himself. “Good thing we didn’t unpack.”

  “Right,” I say. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Jewish Deli a few blocks away,” Puo says. “Only plac
e open at this time of night on Christmas Eve.”

  Freaking Christmas. Ruins everything. Everyone gets out of their routines. Take tonight—the only way we could approach Ham’s place and not be suspicious was as Christmas carolers. Tomorrow? Forget about it. Christmas day is deader than any other. No one moves around except to visit family—public transportation is on a reduced, or even eliminated, schedule.

  Oh, God, I realize suddenly. We can’t make the grab on Christmas. It’s too dead.

  “What?” Puo asks worriedly at seeing the sudden change in my face.

  I can only just look at him. If feels like there is a heavy weight on my chest, like I’m applying so much energy to breathe and getting none in return.

  “What?” Puo repeats. Winn shifts to stare at me as well.

  “We need to make the grab in front of the cops,” I say. There’s no way to get close to Ham without alerting either Ham or the cops. He’s not going to move on his own and the cops have him under tight surveillance.

  Puo nods carefully. “Right.” He already knew that.

  “We then need to get away,” I say. For some reason, I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to make it real.

  “Right.” Puo nods again. Winn is following the conversation tight-lipped with heavy wrinkles creasing his forehead.

  “They’ll chase us,” I say. Why can’t they connect the dots?

  “Yeah,” Puo says, “we’ll need an ant swarm.”

  When Puo stops there, I say, “Right ... ant swarm ... on Christmas.”

  Puo’s mouth falls open when he gets it. For ant swarm to work transportation needs to be up and running, the fuller capacity the better the chance of success. But on a dead day like Christmas? Forget it. We don’t have a choice.

  We have to wait until the day after Christmas to make our move—which ironically is a perfect day for it.

  Right when the timer will run out.

  The silence grows between us, a thick blanket smothering the room, making it hard to breathe, to blink.

  “What?” Winn finally asks, unfamiliar with the finer points of ant swarm.